The invention relates to a scanner with multiple optical fibres, and more particularly to an improvement of a multi-sensor which achieves an optical scanning operation at a high rate of a specimen to be examined under a microscope or the like.
The requirements imposed on a screening apparatus for recording and processing data obtained from a multitude of specimens are the automation capability and the high speed of processing of data from the specimens. To satisfy such requirements, there has been proposed a multi-sensor formed by glass fibres and which utilizes a single spot to scan the field of sight of a microscope. Referring to FIG. 1A, there is shown a given number of glass fibres 1, which are ten in number in the example shown, which have one of their end faces 1a disposed in alignment along a line and secured in place and having their other end faces 1b disposed in opposing relationship with separate detectors 2, each of which comprise a photoelectron multiplier tube. The end faces 1a are located in a field of sight 3 defined by an image enlarging and focussing plane of an objective, as shown in FIG. 1B, while a scanning stage carrying a specimen 4 thereon is moved at a rate of 1.mu.m/second, for example, to perform a scanning of the specimen. The information signal detected by the sensor is fed to the photoelectron multiplier tubes located at the other end of the fibres for electronic processing of the signal of each channel defined by the individual fibres. The described multi-sensor is capable of screening the full field of sight of a microscope in one step and is adapted for automation to improve the processing speed of the specimen. However, the sensor requires the use of a number of photo-multiplier tubes, and also requires a multiplexer to process multi-channel outputs from the specimen.